Your final installation proposal should take the form of a visual culture manifesto Your manifesto should have a 1-2 paragraph preamble which announces the need for the manifesto and then uses the following three topic headings. In each of the three sections you explicitly take a stance on the issues raised below with reference to your installation artist and/or any other artist we have considered in the class. You should submit a hard copy of the document and post it on a wiki page within your installation.
Critical / Theoretical Value - the question of meaning. How do critical and theoretical notions shape the "meaning" of a work? Who / what determines these notions? Does a work of art differ in any sense from any other kind of visual culture? To what extent does / should theory be tied to ideological / political issues?
The production of a discourse of visual culture entails the liquidation of art as we have known it. There is no way within such a discourse for art to sustain a separate existence, not as a practice, not as a phenomenon, not as an experience, not as a discipline. Museums would then need to become double encasings, preserving art objects, and preserving the art-idea. Art history departments would be moved in with archaeology. And what of "artists"? In the recently expired socialist societies, they printed up call- ing cards with their profession listed confidently after their name and phone number. In recently restructured capitalist societies, they became caught in a dialectical cul-de-sac, attempting to rescue the autonomy of art as a reflective, critical practice by attacking the museum, the very institution that sustains the illusion that art exists. Artists as a social class demand sponsors: the state, private patrons, corporations. Their products enter the market through a dealer- critic system that manipulates value and is mediated by galleries, museums, and private collections. Tomorrow's artists may opt to go underground, much like freemasons of the eighteenth century. They may choose to do their work esoterically, while employed as producers of visual culure
Production Value - the question of materiality and process. What are the physical constraints on the work and how do they shape and determine its existence? What role does the artist play in the process? Does skill and technique matter?
Market Value - the question of what a work is worth. How are / should market values be set? What forces shape that value - popularity, critical opinion, supply and demand? Should the artist care and/or be involved in the process of market valuation?
Final Installation Proposal
due: Tuesday, May 4, 2 pages
Your final installation proposal should take the form of a visual culture manifesto Your manifesto should have a 1-2 paragraph preamble which announces the need for the manifesto and then uses the following three topic headings. In each of the three sections you explicitly take a stance on the issues raised below with reference to your installation artist and/or any other artist we have considered in the class. You should submit a hard copy of the document and post it on a wiki page within your installation.
Critical / Theoretical Value - the question of meaning. How do critical and theoretical notions shape the "meaning" of a work? Who / what determines these notions? Does a work of art differ in any sense from any other kind of visual culture? To what extent does / should theory be tied to ideological / political issues?
Consider here the opening paragraph of the answer Susan Buck-Morss gave to October's Visual Culture Questionaire:
The production of a discourse of visual culture entails the liquidation of art as we have known it. There is no way within such a discourse for art to sustain a separate existence, not as a practice, not as a phenomenon, not as an experience, not as a discipline. Museums would then need to become double encasings, preserving art objects, and preserving the art-idea. Art history departments would be moved in with archaeology. And what of "artists"? In the recently expired socialist societies, they printed up call- ing cards with their profession listed confidently after their name and phone number. In recently restructured capitalist societies, they became caught in a dialectical cul-de-sac, attempting to rescue the autonomy of art as a reflective, critical practice by attacking the museum, the very institution that sustains the illusion that art exists. Artists as a social class demand sponsors: the state, private patrons, corporations. Their products enter the market through a dealer- critic system that manipulates value and is mediated by galleries, museums, and private collections. Tomorrow's artists may opt to go underground, much like freemasons of the eighteenth century. They may choose to do their work esoterically, while employed as producers of visual culure
See also
Production Value - the question of materiality and process. What are the physical constraints on the work and how do they shape and determine its existence? What role does the artist play in the process? Does skill and technique matter?
See also:
Market Value - the question of what a work is worth. How are / should market values be set? What forces shape that value - popularity, critical opinion, supply and demand? Should the artist care and/or be involved in the process of market valuation?
See also: